The Beet of a Different Drummer

Uta walks through the fields of sugar beets, her caduceus-inspired staff providing support as a walking stick. She's wearing her Steel badge from the Hunter's Guild, which can mean that either she's here on some sort of mission, or she forgot to remove it since her last duty.

She stops in the middle of the path. She closes her eyes, and listens to the gentle rustling of the grass in the wind. She inhales, smiles, and breathes out. "Ah, summer in the countryside."

Schneider is skulking poorly through the underbrush, knocking aside sugar beets and knocking over farm things (but setting them back, after) and driving whatever natural wildlife there is away. He pops up from behind a fallen tree, strikes a bold and fighty pose, and ohs as he spots Uta. "Ah, sorry. I'm on a quest," he explains. "Have you seen any rabbits? Or bun-buns, they're called, it says?"

     The summer breeze carries something with it, besides the occasional scent of wildflowers or the distant aromas of scattered Lander farms. It's a guitar! And it's not far, because Uta can hear a familiar tenor drawl over the instrument. It has a certain resonance to it that's slightly different from your average acoustic, louder too. It doesn't take much looking from the spot where she's paused to spot the source of the music. It's Sunshine, sat just a short walk ahead--the blonde braided hair is a dead giveaway, if the voice wasn't already.

     The song is a steady, driving thing, with a guitar motif that alternates between a mood like dogged determination and laid-back disregard. His back is to her, unaware of any audience, sat down with a little lunch spread out on a cloth to keep it from getting dirty. "Sorry, mama," he croons in the lower range of his voice, as that guitar switches to the 'carefree disregard.' "Theeere are times I get carried away/ Please! Don't worry/ Next time I'm home, it'll still be the same."

     Back to the dogged, slightly bluesy determination: "And I know/ It's no fun/ when your first son/ gets up to no good./ Stop freakin' out the neighborhoo--"

     The sound of a snapping branch draws his attention, turning his head to see what the source of that commotion os. "Huh?" Looking over his shoulder, he spots someone emerging from the underbrush. Inspect! An Adventurer... Schneider, huh? Sunshine's an only child, but darn if Schneider doesn't look like he could be a more athletic older brother. The bard is paler and shorter, but they've got pretty similar hair, with his own being a shade darker, and bound regularly. He stands up from his spot, guitar still at his front, and waves--best to be friendly with strangers, he finds. "Howdy!" It's shortly thereafter, looking around, that he spots Uta, too. "And hello to you too, Uta."

Gwen has been looking for Uta for a while. She has expressed she wants to talk to her friend in person. She hears Uta call of a quest.

"Only Bun-Bun I have seen is my pet one, I'm afraid if I do I'll give you a shout. Oh! Uta I have been looking for you! I have had ideas!" She'll also take a look at Schneider and feels strange.

"I have seen you before somewhere..."

She can't quite put her finger on it though as she sees another soul has joined this impromptu gathering. She'll look to the source of the song, she was not expecting a song out here. She'll take a closer look at Sunshine and then Scheider.

"Hey there. I'm Gwen Pendragon!"

Uta greets Schneider with a smile, and then shakes her head at him. "No, I am afraid I haven't of late. There were a lot for the Bun-Bun festival, but since then..." She trails off, and her gaze gets lost in the distance.

She then shakes her head, to clear it. "But maybe you can help me. See, I've been hired by the farmers to find out who keeps trampling over the sugar beets and knocking over farm equipment."

"Oh, hello, Sunshine!", she says to the musician. "Please don't stop on our account, the music was delightful. It- is that Gwen? Hey Gwen! How happy I am to see you!"

But then, the towering Sylph mentions she's been plotting. "Oh, don't worry about that, Gwen! Seriously. Don't have ideas on my account, I don't want to be a bother. Besides, Wake's been targeting me as well of late, and I thought, hey, how about you two meet and target each other? It would be an epic clash of fashion. Which, considering how a lot of fashion is about making things not clash, having an epic clash of not clashing is very ironic and..." She frowns. "...actually, I'd like to see that."

Schneider ohs as Sunshine shows up as well in this trackless jungle he's found himself in, hunting bunbuns. Or, maybe a farm? Well, he doesn't pay a great deal of attention to where he is. After all, wherever he is, he's already there! He looks around again, decides maybe it -is- a farm after all, then back to Sunshine; he does a quick inspect as well just to be sure, but smiles winningly. "Hi there," he replies. "Er, how's it going?"

He looks to the tall Gwen, as tall as he is, and arches a brow, but smiles widely. He doesn't often meet women as tall as he is. Not from the non-bestial races, anyhow. Werefangs and like that do get pretty big. As far as having seen him before, he can only shrug. "I've been around since the game started, but eh, who can say?" He gives Uta a thoughtful look, but he says, "I've been around here all week, and I haven't seen anyone. Or any bun-buns. I did get the quest a while back," he admits, "and I just hadn't gotten around to it. Did I miss it?"

     "Reno Sunshine. Just Sunshine's fine!" He gives Gwen and Schneider alike a lazy two-fingered salute, then bends down to grab an apple he'd apparently almost finished. Crunch. Crunch. That guitar of his is a little unusual-looking--the green finish on it, for one, makes it look like it's years older than it could possibly be. For two, looks like it's made of metal, and instead of a traditional sound hole, there's a wide brass disc set into the sound board. Maybe that's why it seems louder than a standard acoustic guitar. Finishing the apple, with only the core left, he calls up a menu to discard it, wiping his hands with a little cloth pulled from the messenger bag at his hip.

     Grinning at Uta, he nods, his now-clean hands finding the frets where he left off. He picks back up, but softer now, so as not to drown out the conversation. He was about half-way through the song, it seems, as he now cooks up a little improv solo working off of the more dreamy portion, starting high and meandering low, before returning to the lyrics and, in so doing, replying to Schneider with that same grin. The melody has a certain whimsy to it, meandering downwards from a higher starting point, just as the guitar does. "Reeeally, I'm fine," A pleasant slide upwards from a throaty lower note, "Neeever been better, got no job on the line/ Sin-cere-ly, don't wor-ry/ Same old boy/ That ya hoped you would find." A cheeky wink, there. Save that last sentence, yeah, it's mostly perfect by way of a response. Though, who knows? Maybe Schneider's a social sort, like him.

     He returns to a previous verse, the guitar transitioning back to that more bluesy walking riff. It's the one reminiscent of a troublesome son being lectured by his parents for 'freaking out the neighborhood,' and following that, a very pleasant, surf-rock kind of solo that's a sassy variation on the earlier riff, ending on a high, pleasantly sweet chord. "I like that one," he says happily, reaching down for a canteen and letting his free hand rest on the body of the guitar while he drinks. "So, what's this about bun-buns, beets and farm tools, now?" He's always interested in gossip.

Gwen now looks over to Uta and smiles again at her.

"Oh! I wanted your help with an idea for me."

She grins. Where is she going with this? She then pauses for a moment.

"Wake and I should coordinate together then!"

Look what you have done! Uta, what have you done.

Gwen nods to Sunshine and smiles a bit at it she'll watch him for a moment and listen to him some more as he sings some more. The towering woman seems to have taken a liking to this music.

She'll also look to Schneider.

"No I think I mean before this somehow..."

She inspects him for a moment humming.

"A quest if it times out? Generally tells you it is no longer valid. If any of you are on a quest though? I'd be down to help."

Uta gives Schneider a long, long look. "...Don't worry, Schneider! You'll always be a champion to me!", she says with a smile.

"It's a good song, Reno. I like it. And well, in spring there's a festival about bun-buns. They have special quests. About bun-buns. Schneider might be a few weeks late for that. As for me, I'm trying to find out who's trampling all over this farmer's beets. It might be bun-buns. It might not. That's what I'm here to find out."

"...oh, wait, it's an idea for /you/? I... I think I can help with that, I guess? Unless it's about fashion. I am afraid I cannot be of any help there. Wake's your contact then."

Schneider would like to be a social sort, but isn't sure how. He's always been so caught up in his own world, without looking into others' worlds, but now, here he is. Sunshine's guitar-reply draws a smile, though, and he explains about the bunbuns, "I picked up a quest a while back, but hadn't worked on it. I think I was a bit too low-level at the time. Not that I'm high-level now, but I'm higher than I was. But it's looking like the quest has past its time." He shrugs.

He hrms to Gwen, and says, "Well, before the game, I was an anime character. You may have seen me there?" He grins, "Well, not me, I was in school at the time. But the character was in an anime called Bastard. But I liked the show, and the name wasn't taken, so I made the character." As to helping with the quest, he says, "I'll try and share it..."

But he's kind of new, and it takes a moment before he says, "Huh, it -is- expired, it says." He grins weakly to Uta, and murmurs, "Thanks." He hrms, "Fashion? You guys do the new clothing stuff? That's cool."

     "Me too!" Sunshine nods emphatically in agreement with Gwen. He'd love to help out with a quest. It's something to do. Plus, you never know what you might find working away at a quest--and besides that, this part of Yamato's real pretty in the summer. It'd be good to see more of it. Even when Uta mentions that Schneider's might have expired, he's still willing to help with hers: "We might could hit some of the farmhouses 'round here, chat up them Landers, see if they've seen anything. I bet it's somebody creepin' through at night, me..."

     Speaking of that, he stows the canteen away and gives the nearby expanse of farmland the once-over. He's no farmer, but a few of those leafy protrustions do look like they've been disturbed, the tilled soil in disarray here and there. Huh.

     The mention of anime is what ultimately draws his attention back--not because he was a fan of such things himself, but because he wasn't. Unfamiliar territory is exciting, to him. He supposes, looking at Schneider, that he might see the influence--especially in the shade of his hair. "I signed up pretty quick my own self, but not quick enough--wanted just plain ol' Sunshine, but it got taken before I could get my rig all set up, I guess. So, Bastard, huh? Is Schneider the, uh, titular Bastard?" He smirks, rubbing his chin.

Gwen looks at Uta for a moment "That festival is a thing of horror. Those Bun-buns are a terror."

She looks to Uta at the mention of her quest. "I'd be happy to help and well I was thinking of trying to do some slime-themed stuff and wanted your help."

She ponders "I should bring Wake in on this too."

She'll look back to Schneider. "Wait yes! My father had a copy of it! Not sure how you pulled the look off but well done!"

Gwen starts to get ideas wheels are turning in her head now. She now seems to be thinking about fashion ideas.

"The Landers might know something, famrers wouldn't normally haver the fire power to deal with something that could be causing problems. They'd have to wait on us or the Hunters depending on what it was."

"Aren't you in the Hunters Guild, Sunshine? They have plenty of quests to give out, appropriate to one's skill and experience level. That's how I got this one." She sighs at the discussion of names. "Wait, we could have picked single word names? Uh. I wish I had known that." She scratches the back of her head. "Last minute sign-up here. Juuuust in time to get trapped."

"I'll be glad to help with anything slime-related, Gwen! Just tell me, and as soon as the ramp-up phase is done at the lab, I will schedule whatever you are interested in!" She shudders at the mention of bringing Wake on board. "...you... you mean on board with the slimes, right?" She gestures in the general direction of Gwen while addressing Schneider. "...I don't. They do. She and Wake. And... I'm afraid I am not familiar with that anime."

Schneider is now definitely thinking that he is the person the farmers have been complaining about, stomping through their fields on his expired quest. He does agree, "Yes, let's keep looking around together." Because hopefully they won't find it's him, if he's with them, and ... if the culprit has 'gone away' that'd be a win, right? They'd have driven him off, or something. "It, er, could be bun-buns that have caused the trouble, right?"

He nods to Sunshine about Schneider being the Bastard, and says, "Dark Schneider in the manga is kind of a jerk, because he wants what he wants, and takes it. So, I'm not quite that Dark, I guess. And also, I don't /just/ do fire spells. But I'm working on converting a cold spell I know into a fire one. That'd make more sense for the character, who doesn't do cold spells. But the way the skills work, I'm not nearly as badass as the character in the manga. Maybe in time. A lot of time." But progress is slow. He should maybe have picked a different class combination. He smiles to Gwen as she mentions her father, and he laughs, "My dad did, too, is how I first saw it. The look is ... well, it took a bit of patience in the character builder, but I think it was worth it." He poses dramatically, the wind blowing back his hair. As far as single word names go, he says, "Oh, my full name -is- Dark Schneider. But no one that I know of goes by their full name, just the display name."

     "Sure am," he says, nodding at Uta. "Though, I ain't what you'd call a regular. Much prefer to go out and explore, or hang out in taverns--most times I'm fine just helpin' somebody else with theirs, unless I figure I'll find somethin' real interesting." He pauses, pondering XP rewards. "Or unless there's new places I wanna explore, where I might need a leg up in levels to stay safe." Anyway, that carefree song he sang before probably makes a little more sense now. 'No job on the line' indeed. This is one of those players that levels more slowly than most, and he knows it.

     Schneider's explanation of his name inspiration is heard with clear interest. "I can sure understand wantin' to emulate somebody's skill. Good on you for not emulatin' the Bastard part!" He grins, slinging the guitar over his back. "Well, I'm gonna head out that way," he says, pointing at one of the farmhouses in the distance. "See if anybody's home, chat 'em up if they are. Soon as when I get done, I'll meet y'all back here. Five, ten minutes, tops, I reckon..."

     He doesn't know who the culprit is--but those Landers over there might have seen something, if they were home. He makes to step in that direction... then pauses. "Should we party up for this?" He's just curious, fine with keeping it informal.

Gwen says "Ah it's a hunter's guild job for you then? What rank was the quest if I might ask?" She's just trying to get a feel for how much firepower they're going to need for this. "Well really you are miss Random are you not?"

She grins a bit at Uta. "Oh, I mean with fashion efforts." The grin gets wider there is no malice in it but clearly, Gwen is in full GWEN mode right now. She is however staring to look for whatever is messing up the crops.

"Hey didn't it have that warrior Elf in it? I recall two of his old minions joined him when he switched sides the Ninja Master and the Sword Master if I recall right?"

She has some of it coming back to her.

"Get to end game again and you can pull off some pretty crazy magic. Ah, the fine art of hitting randomize till it spits out what you want or close enough that's some serious patients for it."

She laughs.

"Yeah I tend to use my surname for when I'm doing business myself."

Gwen looks to Sunshine as he suggest they group up.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

She'll start handing out invites if no one beats her to the punch.

"Oh, it's a porcelain quest. Easy-peasy. The farmers could probably have done it themselves, they just couldn't devote full time attention to it." She shrugs. "I just wanted something relaxing after dealing with gnolls and goblins."

"...I hit the random button not just for appearance, but at every single question in character generation. That's what Gwen means with Little Miss Random," She explains for those who might not be aware of that tidbit of story yet. "I hoped to got something I needed rather than something I wanted." Again back to Gwen. "What is this end game, and what is this crazy magic about?"

She shrugs at Schneider. "The bun-buns are pretty high on the list of suspects. We just need to positively spot some trampling the beets and knocking over equipment... and we're done."

"The job of finding who ruins the beets has already been assigned through the Hunters Guild, but... who knows, Sunshine. Maybe they could use an extra farm hand, or someone to regularly go to and from the nearby city for supplies and deliveries?"

Schneider smiles to Sunshine about not emulating the Bastard part. Not that he could if he wanted, he'd spend more time dead than alive if he were to try that. He nods about heading over to the farmhouse, and says, "I'll stay with the group, I guess. If we see some fercious bunbuns, it'd be better if we don't spread out too far."

To Gwen, he nods. "The Ninja Master, Gara, and the Dark Elf Sorceress, Arshes Nei, it was. They'd stayed with the 'taking over the world' project when he vanished, but when he came back, they were more loyal to him than the project." Or something like that. He'll accept the party invite, though. He nods to Uta about the bun-buns, and says, "And if we do find them trampling things, maybe it'll complete my quest, too?" He can hope!

Gwen says "We need to get you some more experience Uta so you can rank up a bit! You need to adventure more!" She looks back to Uta for a moment.

"I was at level cap before we entered this world for good. High-level magic is the norm there are spells and attacks. which can wipe entire pulls in one casting or things like Explosion."

She notes grinning a bit. "I miss Grand Cross so much, it would make mulch of any demon or undead I ran into."

She gets a bit wistful for this.

"Well we should hit the street as it were and find out just what the locals know."

     Oh, oops. He'd nearly gone traipsing off without his things! The bard kneels down and collects the cloth he'd used to keep his food from getting dirty, stuffing it into that messenger back at his hip rather messily. There's probably no organization whatsoever in there, judging by the way he just forces it closed.

     "May-be," he says, in response to Uta. He doesn't seem particularly bothered that the job's already been taken. "Me, I'm more of a chuck line kinda guy--like to take gossip back and forth between these sortsa places. Sometimes it's actually pretty interesting stuff, you get tips every now and then... and it's fun besides. If I hear anything sounds relevant, I'll pass it your way. I ain't trying to step on your toes!" He beams.

     With everything packed up, he heads off, sticking to the path so as not to trample any beets, to chat up some of the landers and possibly earn a bit of gold taking messages between the farmsteads. That'll probably keep him occupied for a while, but he does send out a few friend requests--that way if he hears anything that might be of interest to the others, it's just a message away!

Uta accepts and sends friends invites to everyone who doesn't have one already. Gwen's description of 'end game magic' leave her astonished. "Wow...", she says. She doesn't dare ask, but she surely hopes one of those spells will allow her to touch slimes without getting hurt. More motivation for leveling up!